By Brigitte L. Nacos
In 2015, during the pre-primary season, Donald Trump laid the groundwork for his domination of the mainstream media’s news coverage that continued through his nomination as GOP presidential candidate. Research by communication scholars documented not only Trump’s complete dominance of the news but also the fact that he received more positive coverage than his GOP rivals. Now, four years later, the President repeats his news dominance by blasting crazy, inconsistent, and contradictory statements via Twitter or “informal” encounters with the White House press. What Trump and a compliant mainstream media managed then seems to be repeated now: Then, Trump’s GOP rivals received little media attention; now Democrats competing for their party’s nomination receive little prominent coverage in comparison to the president.
I just took a look at the online headers signaling lead stories in the New York Times and Washington Post. Of the 7 top news headlines of the Times, not counting the opinion pieces, three mentioned “Trump,” one had “White House” in the header. On the Post site, above the opinion pieces, 13 of 20 headlines mentioned “Trump.” In both cases one or more additional headers signaled Trump administration policies without mentioning the president’s name.
Of course, these headers change constantly. But what does not change is the dominance of stories that Trump triggers with his constant flow of statements. Indeed, certain of these items get often special attention as breaking news—such as the banner on top of the Washington Post site that earlier today advertised that Trump, again, changed his mind about lowering payroll taxes.
Surfing early afternoon today for half an hour or so through the all-news cable channels except for Trump’s favorite FOX News I found that the hosts at CNN, MSNBC and even CNBC were talking about Trump all the time--often with visuals of the president in the background and Trump-related news items on the crawl bar.
At minimum Trump sets the news agenda day-in and day-out by an endless flow of outrageous statements that are most of the time not at all related to the reality of governing. His expressed positions are reported as lead stories as are the complete reversals that come often within hours or days.
The news organizations that Trump accuses of publicizing “fake” news are full what he says, full of his alternative facts and post-truths that he knows will be magnified not only by FOX but by his press “enemies” as well.
Yes, every president has to be covered. The question is: what is covered and how prominently and extensively.
This is a question that the newsrooms need to ponder now and answer better than four years ago. Otherwise, even the best of our news organizations become, again, unwittingly, Trump’s bedfellows in a marriage of convenience before next year’s election.
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